School cash account plan for children in care

Children being cared for by the state should receive cash accounts to help them with their education, according to the thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research. More than 80,000 children pass through the care system each year and they have the worst educational attainment of any group. Just one in 10 will have achieved five A*-C grade GCSEs last week, compared with half of their peers.

The report says council taxpayers could pay just £1.32 a year to enable local authorities to open accounts and provide the children with monthly deposits of £20.